CURRENT & UPCOMING EXHIBITIONs
UPCOMING Exhibitions:
exhibitions open to public from
January 7- April 18, 2026
Emma Hassencahl-Perley : everywhere and completely
Jobena Petonoquot: My Souvenir Ceremony
Current Exhibitions:
gallery 1:
daphne, MDDT/IF Collective
& Elegoa Cultural Productions present -
Adrian Stimson:
Tiotáhsawen Tsi Tontá:re ne Buffalo Boy Ahstonhró:non Onkwehón:we
Prélude au Retour de l’Indien américain par Buffalo Boy
A Prelude to Buffalo Boy’s The American Indian Returns
Co- Curated by : Lori Beavis & Catherine Sicot, members of the MDDT/IF Collective
September 5-December 13, 2025
daphne, MDDT/IF Collective and Elegoa Cultural Productions present -
Adrian Stimson: Tiotáhsawen Tsi Tontá:re ne Buffalo Boy Ahstonhró:non Onkwehón:we
A Prelude to Buffalo Boy’s The American Indian Returns
This exhibition tells many stories. One is of Adrian Stimson discovering La Rochelle during the Les rencontres décoloniales1 residency in January 2023. La Rochelle is a small yet prestigious port city on the Atlantic coast of France known as “beautiful and rebellious,” a reference in part to the XVIIth century, when the wealthy Huguenot city declared its independence from the King of Catholic France 2 . Then the city amassed its wealth through transatlantic commerce, beginning with New France and further expanding its market across the world to include, amongst other commodities, the slave trade. By 1927, its influence was great enough to host a major Colonial Exhibition.
Within this rich colonial context, Stimson stumbles upon an event that sparks his idea for a performance—Buffalo Boy’s The American Returns. In 1905, Buffalo Bill and his Wild West Show performed in La Rochelle. Buffalo Boy, Stimson’s alter ego, would therefore take his turn: landing in the old port from the ocean leading a parade through the streets to the old Jesuit church where a final feast would take place. This is how Buffalo Boy would claim France in the name of love.
As relationships and partnerships are being built 3 , Stimson is now embarking on the creation of a site-specific Pow Wow Opera with collaborators from Siksika and La Rochelle. In this participatory multi-media music hall, Buffalo Boy invites the voices of La Rochelle’s diasporic communities to tell another story of colonization, inspired by love.
This exhibition also includes a prophecy. In 2011 Buffalo Boy was photographed by Haudenosaunee artist Jeff Thomas in Ottawa. The resulting Seize the Space series acts as a precursor to Stimson’s current project, capturing Buffalo Boy in front of the Samuel de Champlain monument (1918). In the photographs he is both cavorting and pensive as he confronts the monumental colonizer.
In this exhibition, Stimson develops a range of artistic strategies, moving from photography to painting, where he charts Buffalo Boy’s transatlantic route to and his arrival in La Rochelle. Through word play and parody, he flips history on its head: in Bison Bulla, for example, Stimson inverts Pope Alexander VI’s 1493 Papal Bull Inter Caetera—a key document in the Spanish conquest of the New World. Finally, with the Bull Boat at sea, Buffalo Boy sets out on his transatlantic crossing, surrounded by the fish and sea animal friends who entertain him on his journey.
This project is important from an Indigenous perspective because it acknowledges both the historical and contemporary dimensions of Indigenous presence on these lands and waters.
Adrian Stimson’s exhibition at daphne is preparatory for his journey and eventual performance in La Rochelle. Here the artist acknowledges both the history of La Rochelle as a departure point for colonial expansion in so-called New France and the role of Tiohtià:ke / Montreal as a key staging ground for the fur trade and westward expansion. By situating this work here, Stimson connects personal and collective Indigenous narratives to the broader story of colonization and its ongoing impacts. His work, infused with humour, resilience, and critique, reminds us that Indigenous artists hold the power to reframe these histories and create spaces for truth-telling, continuity, and transformation. The performance draws on Indigenous values of reciprocity, memory, and relation, positioning art as a site where we reckon with the past while also affirming life and the worlds we continue to build.
The rationale for showing this project at daphne is clear: as the only Indigenous artist-run centre in Tiohtià:ke and one of only five in the country, daphne provides a context led by Indigenous artists and values. Our current 3-year programming framework, Below / Surface / Above Worlds, rooted in the Ohén:ton Karihwatéhkwen, creates a living structure that guides how we gather, acknowledge, and bring our minds together. This year’s focus on the surface worlds—diplomacy, being on the land, nation-building, activism—aligns with Stimson’s project as he prepares for his return to La Rochelle. Hosting this work in Montreal, a city at the confluence of major rivers and histories, allows us to convene important conversations at a crucial crossroads. At daphne, art is the entry point for dialogue, and Indigenous artists like Stimson lead these exchanges with insight, courage, and vision.
Essay by MDDT/IF Collective members Lori Beavis & Catherine Sicot
Adrian Stimson’s Buffalo Boys’ The American Return development is supported to date by Elegoa Cultural Productions as part of the Mobile Decolonial Do Tank (MDDT), an Indigenous-led initiative involving artists Barry Ace (M’Chigeeng Odawa), Adrian Stimson (Siksika, Blackfoot), curators Lori Beavis(Michi Saagiig-Anishinaabe/ Irish-Welsh), Michelle McGeough (Cree Métis/Irish) and Catherine Sicot(French, Canadian). The MDDT benefited from an initial contribution by curator Georgiana Uhlyarik (Roumanian, Canadian).
The MDDT pilot project is currently supported by the Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada (Strategic Innovation Fund, Cultivate program) through a partnershipbetween Elegoa Cultural Productions and Centre d’art daphne and received previous funding from Canada Council for the Arts | Conseil des arts du Canada - Innovation and development of the sector program and Travel, from Le Centre Intermondes /Humanités Océanes (La Rochelle), Le Consulat de France à Montréal, Le Consulat de France à Vancouver, L’ Ambassade de France à Ottawa, Le Museum d’histoire naturelle de La Rochelle, Art Rights Truth and Contemporary Calgary. The MDDT members have recently changed the collective name to the Interwoven Futures Collective (IF).
1. https://elegoa.com/en/content/Rencontres_Decoloniales_La_Rochelle
2 This conflict with the King of France was resolved by a year-long siege where 80% of La Rochelle’s population died before the city capitulated (1627-1628)3 3.https://elegoa.com/en/content/the-mobile-decolonial-do-tank
gallery 2:
Nelson White: Tukien / Awaken
November 1- December 13, 2025
Nelson White: Tukien / (Réveiller) / (Awaken)
by Lori Beavis with text from Pan Wendt and Mathew Hills
Nelson White’s work is rooted in story, family, and community. A representational painter from Flat Bay, Ktaqmkuk / Newfoundland, and a member of the Qalipu Mi’kmaq First Nation Band, White explores the power of self-representation through portraiture. For him, each painting is an open-ended narrative—an invitation for the viewer to enter and imagine, to participate in the unfolding of a story that is both deeply personal and profoundly collective. His art reflects his commitment to reclaiming how Indigenous people are seen, both by themselves and by the world.
White’s connection to his community runs deep. His portraits are not distant depictions but intimate gestures of kinship. They document and celebrate friends, family, and an extended network of Indigenous artists, activists, and leaders. In his exhibition Tukien (Réveiller) / (Awaken)—“Tukien” meaning awaken in Mi’kmaw—White presents a vibrant map of contemporary Indigenous life. His sitters are shown in moments of confidence, contemplation, and power, their individuality expressed through bright colours, pop-art influences, and traditional motifs. In doing so, White’s work disrupts static or romanticized portrayals of Indigenous identity, offering instead images that pulse with life, modernity, and self-determination.
At the heart of this practice lies a deeply personal inheritance. White’s father, Calvin White, is a respected Elder and activist whose lifelong advocacy for Mi’kmaq rights has shaped the social and cultural landscape of Newfoundland and Labrador. A recipient of both the Order of Canada and the Order of Newfoundland and Labrador, Calvin White’s legacy of leadership and storytelling continues through his son’s work. Nelson White carries forward that same spirit of assertion and visibility, translating it into visual language. His paintings are acts of remembrance and renewal—each brushstroke affirming the strength and resilience passed down through generations.
White’s art challenges and redefines the question: What is Indigenous art? For too long, Indigenous people have been represented through the lens of others—often confined to stereotypes or imagined as figures of the past. White’s portraits push back against those limitations. His subjects are people who exist unapologetically in the present—urban, creative, intellectual, and diverse. Sometimes cultural symbols appear overtly; other times, identity is embodied in the person’s very presence. In either case, the artist insists that Indigenous people must define themselves on their own terms. As he has said, “If we don’t control our own images, others will define us.”
That assertion of control—of authorship and narrative—is what makes White’s first solo exhibition at daphne especially meaningful. daphne is a place where artists from across Turtle Island come together to share stories, build relationships, and strengthen community. It is a space founded on collective care, dialogue, and resurgence. In bringing White’s portraits into this context, daphne helps awaken a shared consciousness of who we are now: strong, connected, and continuously creating our future.